Any of you young people? Any of you got a T-mobile phone?

You may be interested in this!

We went past the new drive-in cinema thingy at Millenium Point on Saturday. ‘What new drive-in cinema thingy?’, I hear you ask. It seems that T-mobile have done it as a sort of promo thing. Well, they’ve got ne interested already. I’ve not been to a drive-in since I saw ‘Friday the 13th’ in Connecticut in 1985.

I’d love to go. Am a loyal Orange customer though and don’t fancy changing back to T-Mobile just for the promise of a film on a drive-in. Oh, and they seem to be targeting this at younger people than me. Way to make a girl feel old, T-Mobile!

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Originally uploaded by smallkat.

I went along to Birmingham’s Discovery Day. What glorious weather we had yesterday!

The picture is of a Mehendi design that I had painted onto my hand.

There was a lot going on, i wondered around Victoria Square, Chamberlain Square and then onto Brindley Place.

By a complete coincidence i bumped into my best friend and her family and we spent quite a few hours doing all the activites on Brindley Place with her 4 year old. He had a great time making handprints, building arches and crushing cans!

Loads of people turned out, so I think that it was a good day.

Watching the news on Channel 5 I noted that Birmingham City lost 2-1 to Manchester City whilst Aston Villa lost 1-0 to Manchester United today.

I trust that this, more so that the council’s “Working together. Playing together.” campaign at the start of last season, will help unite fans of both teams - in a mutual hatred of the Mancs.

:-)

Did you know that a German Wine Festival opened today in Centenary Square?

I had parents that drank little else during the early 80s. German wine and German best friends, that was the hot combo in the Liz household as I was growing up.

I have a friend though, who says I should just drop my snooty attitude about liebfraumich and hochwein. He says that Germany produces all kinds of nice stuff these days, and that I really should give it a go.

I remain unconvinced.

Still, we’ll probably go along on Sunday to have a look (and a little taste). Sunday also has the advantage of being a sort of open day (I think they are calling it a Discovery Day or something) for different buildings in the city. I’ve even seen the promise of free go-karting taster sessions for over 18s. You get a chance to go ‘behind the scenes’ of some of our big buildings.

Yes, we bought the Evening Mail today. Mostly for the 2 for 1 Wagamama voucher, but it’s good to know all this stuff is going on!

Maybe I

On my way back from work I popped into the Tesco near the Five Ways roundabout. Coming from Brindleyplace, I normally cut through the back entrance of the car park to get in. Today, however, I was barred by a burley man in an official-looking uniform, because of a fire in the carpark, near the entrance to the shop! What’s the world coming to?!?

It looked like everything had just about been dealt with by the time I was there, as they reopened the car park minutes later, so I didn’t get any pictures or anything. I also didn’t hear whether it was an accident or deliberate, but I don’t think cars have a knack for spontaneously combusting…

Damn vandals / hooligans / idiots.

Here’s a neat way to discover random facts about Birmingham (though a few results get mixed up with our Alabama-based cousin city):

Birmingham has the most *

* is the best in Birmingham

Birmingham is the * capital

… and so on. Let us know what other good ones you come up with!

Disclaimer: The idea for this post was shamelessly stolen from the London Metblog. But hey… imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?

Am I bovvered though? Do I look bovvered?

(Yes, excuse the Catherine Tate reference, but at least it’s a current one).

I am one of the few (I think) people in the UK who doesn’t give two hoots about the new licensing laws, allowing bars to serve all night.

This is partly because to all intents and purposes I’m a non-drinker. Sure, I like a glass of wine as much as the average person, but I rarely go out to bars at night, preferring to spend my hard-earned cash on coffee and soft drinks. Oh - and I’m usually driving, so can’t drink.

In some ways, though, the 11pm ‘time gentlemen please’ is an anachronism. With modern society being focussed on choice, this one area where we don’t have any. I can choose from over 20 types of yoghurt in the supermarket but I can’t drink a glass of wine in the pub after midnight? How very odd.

I’m not one of those people who thinks this’ll lead to more binge drinking. Let’s face it, binge drinking is fashionable now. Like tattoos and Burberry tops there are certain sectors of the community for whom this is the way to recreation. Like the Burberry and the tattoos this fashion may pass. Certainly very few of my aged 30+ friends binge drink any more.

Nor am I of the school of thought that it will reduce violence by stopping the mass exodus of lagered-up youths onto the street at 11.35. Some lagered-up people fight no matter where they are, street, pub, club or front room.

So then. I’m slightly bemused by the ‘residents’ who are protesting about the change in the licensing laws. It seems that they object to the behaviour of the drinkers at 11.30pm. Why do they think it would be any worse at 3am? It’d be later, sure, but will they urinate any more vehemently into their doorways? Will the extra hours drinking produce tidal waves of urine for the residents to fight back?

Dunno. Noone likes drunken oiks carousing outside their bedroom window, but I’m not sure they’d be any worse a couple of hours later.

I was woken by a (sober) neighbour at 3am this morning. I would have been just as annoyed if she’d woken me at 11.30pm. (Yes, not only am I a non-drinker, I also go to bed early!)

So then. Later licenses? Face? Bothered?

Like much of the rest of the country, Birmingham has a chronic problem with housing. Spiralling housing costs have meant that many people, who previously would have had no difficulties affording their first home, cannot get on the property ladder.

One side effect of this has been that there are a large number of houses, many bought in the recent rush to ‘buy-to-let’, standing empty. Landlords have set rents higher than tenants can pay but, due to the sizes of the mortgages they took out to buy the properties, are unwilling to reduce them to a more reasonable figure. In an effort to deal with the housing problems Birmingham City Council are to Empty Dwelling Management Orders under the provisions of the Housing Act (2004) on 11,000 long term vacant properties. This will allow the council to take control of the properties and rent them out at a more realistic rent to tenants.

Whilst this is a good start and will give the city an injection of much needed housing, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Without a massive building programme of low cost social housing to replace that lost to dilapidation, ‘right-to-buy’ and sales to private developers housing is always going to be a massive problem in the city, as elsewhere. Restrictions placed on local councils, mainly during the Thatcher era, have lead to a large drop in available social housing whilst demand (due to rising birth rates, improving life expectancies and immigration) on that dwindling stock have increased.

Ikon Gallery

It’s summer! Yeah, baby! And what better way to unwind after a long day in the office than to spend it than sitting outside, basking in the glorious evening weather with a drink and maybe a bite to eat, and listening to a bit of live music?

When walking home from work today I noticed that the Ikon art gallery (pictured above, which I only recently realised was an art gallery, having never ventured up close to the building before until a friendly Flikrer pointed it out) has a cafe which features live music on some Wednesday evenings. This evening there was an alto saxophonist and a classical guitar player… erm… unfortunately i’ve forgotten their names, so i’ll edit this post at a later date.

I’ll be sure to send out a post the next time I hear of a live event there, too!